


Boys Will Be Boys

by vanishinghitchhiker



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: Gen, Origin Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-03 02:09:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2834297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanishinghitchhiker/pseuds/vanishinghitchhiker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I didn’t mean to write a five times fic, and Alfred didn’t mean to raise a costumed vigilante.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boys Will Be Boys

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bessemerprocess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bessemerprocess/gifts).



The first time Master Bruce stops looking at him in that eerie, calculating manner of his, his eyes instead alight with the enthusiasm of the young boy he should have been, Alfred can hardly breathe. It's hopeless to guess what made the difference amidst all the upheaval in their lives: Bruce's odd friendship with Miss Kyle or the hope of finding the Waynes’ true killer she represents, standing up to that classmate of his, or even just the giddy relief of escaping those assassins unscathed. All that and more, perhaps. He’s no psychologist, but maybe now he can stop desperately contemplating whether night classes would escape the notice of Thomas Wayne’s lawyers and executors (god rest his soul and all that, but his ulcers were beginning to get ulcers). Whatever the cause, the next time Bruce asks him for a sparring session, it’s for fun, not survival, and Alfred resolves that he will do absolutely anything to give him his childhood back.

 

* * *

 

When he catches the lad reading a comic book with a flashlight two hours past bedtime, of course he tells him boys his age need their sleep. But the next morning at breakfast, Bruce mentions one of the mail order ads from the back pages. Already, he's sharp enough to know that anything that costs fifty cents will likely be made of cardboard—little Alfie had learned that lesson the hard way, with cheap pot metal. He raises only the feeblest objections when Bruce declares his intent to buy a real boomerang. A more tenacious child he's never known, but by lunchtime, no doubt, the matter will be forgotten entirely. Just in case, he makes it clear that it’s not to be thrown in the house. It’s bound to be collecting dust in two weeks when Master Bruce decides he should learn yo-yo tricks, or collect trading cards, or whatever the current schoolyard craze may be, but such is the way of things.

 

* * *

 

By the time Alfred makes his escape and tracks down Master Bruce, he’s already at the police station, insisting Alfred had given him permission to be there. Yes, he says with all the guilelessness he can muster when faced with Detective Montoya's questions, Alfred Pennyworth, his butler and guardian. _That_ Alfred. Seems like his brief interest in acting has only honed his innocent air—not only would butter not melt in his mouth, it's enough to make you think the child's never even heard of butter.

Permission, however, to Bruce Wayne, seems to mean "accidentally" messing up the knots when it's finally Alfred’s turn to be Harry Houdini. They'll have to work more on his classical education, then, and a little story called the Gordian Knot. Perhaps Alfred isn't forming the best impression by always having a knife whenever he encounters Detective Allen, but it’s hardly his fault that police tend to be more observant than most people.

 

* * *

 

One day Master Bruce decides he’d like a secret hideout. Naturally, a boy of his brains won’t settle for a fort of blankets and cushions, nor even be content with a treehouse, no matter how elaborate. Instead, the root of his inspiration is discovering a massive cavern on the manor grounds. No mere hole in the ground, it has wall supports, oddly flat floors, even an access tunnel. Likely a relic of the Prohibition era, if not something more recent. After a good scrub and a check with the proverbial canary, it makes a fine hideaway—but it turns out there’s still something missing.

Obviously a secret base requires a secret entrance, not a tunnel someone could literally drive a truck through. After a few weeks of the sort of pressure only a child employer can bring to bear, Alfred finds himself digging a tunnel, with Bruce carrying away the excavated dirt and bringing in lumber to shore it up. After all, it wouldn’t be a secret if they had someone else do it, now would it? It’s probably the maddest thing he’s ever done to bring a smile to the boy’s face, or so he thinks.

He has to admit he's not entirely surprised when they see the project through to completion, even after months of hard work. But the other end of the passage winds up being much lower than they’d anticipated, and Bruce decides the solution is a fireman pole.

This, he decides as installs hinges on a prized, antique, heirloom grandfather clock to stick a fireman pole behind it, is definitely the maddest thing.

 

* * *

 

Years before he can legally acquire his license, Bruce is already as enthusiastic about cars as any teen Alfred’s ever met. Doodles of spiky tail fins and lowered rims (or something like that) gradually encroach from margins to their own pages to entire notebooks. But his appreciation extends beyond the aesthetic, and even before the advent of empty parking lot lessons the lad's eager to get his hands dirty. For his own health, Alfred doesn’t even want to know where Bruce found the rusty old banger he finds parked in the secret hideout one day, and wants even less to know how he got it there. There’s no harm in a bit of tinkering, though, after Bruce voluntarily suggests a wheel clamp and a triple-check of the cave’s ventilation. With any luck, it'll keep him off the streets and away from drag racing for the next few years.

When he’s finally old enough to drive, Alfred doesn’t even mind that Bruce ends up with the usual fleet of rich boy cars while the now thoroughly tricked-out banger languishes in the cavern. There's no way any car imagined in the scribblings of a thirteen-year-old boy was going to be street legal. It puts his mind at ease to know, at the very least, that this rich boy knows how to jump start an engine and change a tire.

 

* * *

 

Not only has Master Bruce kept up his fencing lessons and sparring sessions, over the years he's added a variety of martial arts to his repertoire. As he would have it, the fruits of his studies are focus, fitness, and poise, as well as self-defense against the occasional band of assassins, and for a time that keeps Alfred's worries at bay.

But when he starts expressing an interest in weapons—well, Alfred knows what young men are like, and he fears for the worst. Tragic, young, and wealthy, that's what they'll say on the news. Bright future, what a waste, raised by knife-wielding butler. But there's no reports of trouble with Bruce's peers, and he has an understandable aversion to firearms. His fascination seems to lie along different lines than more typical youths, not even falling within the usual spectrum of those who idly flip through sword catalogs or take photos of themselves with their guns. Instead, he seems mostly interested in technical aspects and nonlethal means: body armor, knockout gas, negotiation. It really should come as no surprise; Bruce always has favored the good cops.

While he has a vested interest in his parents' company, practically grooming himself into a worthy successor between his other hobbies, for the first time Bruce has business activities other than investments and charity to take a personal interest in. Before long he's a regular visitor to the tech divisions, to the R&D department, always ready with a thoughtful question and eager to learn industry from the inside out.

It seems as though the self-styled polymath is settling down at last. Alfred find himself cautiously hoping for a calmer, less stressful future, a little bit of well-earned rest after the ordeal of raising a child. No more fretting over Master Bruce's wanderlust ways when goes swanning off to France or Nanda Parbat; maybe he'll even stop landing so many nice young ladies in the gossip rags. He can't help but feel a twinge of pride at how far Bruce has come, how he finally seems to have found his purpose and place in the world. Maybe he's not done such a bad job as a butler after all.

 

* * *

 

A costumed defender finally puts paid to the jokes that Gotham is too far gone for superheroes, and it's about time as far as Alfred's concerned. He just hopes it doesn't prove too much for the bastard, like the jokes people tell about Hub City. Their new caped vigilante is a man of few words, a bit like that Martian out west. But despite the scant sound bites of a gruff, obviously disguised voice, it doesn’t take long to put two and two together. Who else in this city could kit himself out with such an expensive bag of tricks?

And, Alfred reflects as the rumble of the car’s engine grows faint in the distance, who else would be willing to drive that daft excuse for a vehicle?

It's his duty, of course, to stand by him, and Bruce might have been counting on just that. He could no more hide this than he could hide that car, and he never makes the same mistake twice.

Alfred looks around at the secret hideout: the racks of gimmicky weapons, the state-of-the-art electronics, the various instruction books and bits of armor and other detritus. Master Bruce, he knows now, never stopped being calculating. He’d simply completed his calculations where his butler was concerned, and had long ago put into motion a plan to minimize most of Alfred’s objections.

“Bugger me all to hell,” he says aloud, voice echoing eerily in the Bat-Man’s cave.

**Author's Note:**

> The line from your letter about how Alfred isn't perfect just grabbed me and wouldn't let me go. My only regret is I didn't get around to adding something about shark repellent. Hope it helps brighten your Yuletide!


End file.
